_Broken Money_ book club, part 3 \ stacker news ~bitcoin

104.6k sats \ 69 comments \ @elvismercury 1 Nov 2023 bitcoin

Friends, countrymen, it's time to explore part 3 of Lyn Alden's book Broken Money.

We've done this before (part 1, part 2) and this should have the same vibe -- I'll stir the drink a bit with some high-level comments inspired by these sections of the book, but you should feel free to comment in whatever way your heart moves you. Seriously, jump in! You may have focused on different things. Your curiosity might have been piqued by something mine wasn't.

Caveat: I am neither a historian of money nor of the hermeneutics of Lyn Alden. I'm just some guy. These are just some thoughts.

Let's do it, @k00b, @carlosfandango, @satscats, @ekzyis, @q, @lawndough, @0fje0, @OsomSala49491, @fred, @BTCMagician, @Undisciplined, @siggy47, @SpaceHodler, @cryptosensei, @scottathan, @Bullen.

And what about you, @mallardshead? I'm particularly interested in your geopolitical takes.

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948 sats \ 1 reply \ @elvismercury OP 1 Nov 2023

When the dollar become the world's reserve currency, the US assumed certain responsibilities:

“And for the United States’ role, they had to maintain somewhat credible institutions and a high degree of division of powers between their central bank and their government so that the dollar would be viewed as a credible currency on a global scale. [...] Starting in 1979 and continuing into the 1980s, the new chairman of the Federal Reserve Paul Volcker raised interest rates to nearly 20% and put the United States into a recession to stabilize the dollar. Both Jimmy Carter and his successor Ronald Reagan supported him in this hawkish action.”

How is the USA's credibility at this point? What factors make a country credible, or not? What would ensue from a loss of credibility?

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @k00b 3 Nov 2023

How is the USA's credibility at this point?

BRICs is growing and the petrodollar co-conspirators are breaking up with us so probably not great:

The recent rupee-designated oil transaction between India and the United Arab Emirates is not merely a swipe at the petrodollar arrangement that has prevailed since 1973. It is also a signal that the world’s major commodity exporters and importers can try to reduce their dependence on the dollar. If not a new world order, the BRICS expansion is certainly an attempt at an alternative world order, one with a more sympathetic ear for the developing many versus the developed few.

What factors make a country credible, or not?

It's the same factors that make a human credible - honoring commitments, I'd guess. We've been breaking commitments lately:

The West’s proclivity to deploy unilateral financial sanctions, abuse international payments mechanisms, renege on climate finance commitments, and accord scant respect to food security and health imperatives of the Global South during the pandemic are only some of the elements responsible for the growing disenchantment with the prevailing international system.

It's probably not just honoring commitments. As with humans, if you have enough power you can be a total shithead and people will treat you as if you're credible.

What would ensue from a loss of credibility?

Oversaturated with Dalio as I am, loss of world reserve currency status and internal and external disorder.

1008 sats \ 21 replies \ @elvismercury OP 1 Nov 2023

Lyn makes the point that the ability to print money fundamentally changed how nations made war, since they no longer had to tax their citizens to enable war efforts. Following this logic, the standard btc narrative is that returning to a hard-money standard will reduce conflict by reigning in these tendencies.

But if one of the original reasons for switching to fiat was to muster resources to fight wars (see e.g., p. 113), and to coordinate human action in service of those fights, what would it imply for a nation in the process of adopting a btc standard vs other nations still using fiat money?

576 sats \ 12 replies \ @Undisciplined 1 Nov 2023

Fiat helps wage wars of aggression, because it quietly syphons resources away from people who wouldn't provide them willingly.

Defensive wars are a whole different story. People are very willing to invest in defending their own homes.

420 sats \ 11 replies \ @elvismercury OP 1 Nov 2023

It makes logical sense, but I'm unsure of how big the effects are in practice. In antiquity, there was no end of wars of conquest under hard money standards -- in fact, going out and looting other nations made a lot of sense, since their wealth was a giant honeypot. Rome encircled the entire Mediterranean with this strategy, and they weren't the only ones using it.

Moreover, my perception is that mercantilist attitudes in the Age of Exploration were massively driven by sound money -- trade was considered zero-sum, you wanted to export (to get gold) vs import (sending your gold out of the country). Much aggression and jockeying and war ensued. Although I admit my knowledge of this is cursory, am happy to have other perspectives.

Maybe my most macro take-away is that, in a complex world, complex phenomena emerge, and our ability to foresee how it will shake out is minimal: make a plan, god laughs. As I mentioned in an earlier comment, I'm confident of almost nothing in life besides this.

162 sats \ 10 replies \ @Undisciplined 1 Nov 2023

I agree with a lot of that, but I have some random thoughts to follow up with.

Monetary debasement was common during antiquity (coin shaving, hole punching, etc.), as a way to finance wars.

The scale of war was much smaller: often seasonal and regional. However, wars often lasted for generations, so maybe that's a wash.

The spoils point is interesting. Maybe fiat changed the nature of war, to where we don't explicitly take territory and slaves as often.

The Age of Exploration opened enormous new trade opportunities for Europe, which is what financed those expansions. Modern wars don't seem to do that, but maybe they do for the individuals who start them.

441 sats \ 9 replies \ @elvismercury OP 1 Nov 2023

So much nuance.

It would be interesting to war-game (pun intended) what war might look like in a world where people across all nations had significant wealth in btc; and perhaps nations did, too. How would these forces interact?

E.g., it would seem to not make sense for wars of conquest, since it would be really hard to seize people's btc (though not impossible, contra maximalists) and the more btc someone held, the harder to seize it would be, as the institutions, norms, and tech around distributed storage evolved. But perhaps "wars of conquest" would come to mean something else, in time. But what?

The spoils point is interesting. Maybe fiat changed the nature of war, to where we don't explicitly take territory and slaves as often.

This one is really interesting, too. It is such a ... faux pas now to seize territory. Like, it feels gross and beyond-the-pale in a way that I imagine is quite new in the course of human events: of course you don't get to take over Iraq and slaughter its male populace once you conquer it. Perhaps forces unleashed in fiat are playing out in cultural norms, sometimes for good, sometimes for ill? What would the btc equivalents be?

861 sats \ 8 replies \ @Majere 1 Nov 2023

To add some humor, both warring nations find a neutral 3rd party. Create a 2 of 3 multisig with the pot going to the winner of the conflict. But looking at the wars fought between Italian city states under a hard money world is a good example. Granted the Medici family could finance a side.

566 sats \ 0 replies \ @elvismercury OP 1 Nov 2023

I do not envy the people setting out the terms for that oracle to decide on :)

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @evanbaer 1 Nov 2023

Plus each warring nation would need to find a bitcoiner to help them sign the transaction.

0 sats \ 5 replies \ @Undisciplined 1 Nov 2023

Talk about moral hazard. Ideally, the aggressor would lose something substantial.

420 sats \ 4 replies \ @Majere 1 Nov 2023

Ok, let's play that out. In an offensive war the aggressor puts up a pre determined amount. Ideally enough to weaken them so they can't try this again. The defending party being the one with the most to lose in a loss considering territory still has to put up a bit as well to lock up the transaction. I can only imagine the debate at the UN, you've now made sanctions obsolete & going war adds more risk. Hmmm

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420 sats \ 7 replies \ @siggy47 1 Nov 2023

The transition will be ugly if the fiat powers gradually decay as opposed to a smash bang apocalypse. El Salvador isn't far from the U.S. southern border.

756 sats \ 6 replies \ @elvismercury OP 1 Nov 2023

Can you say more about this? How do you imagine a "gradual decay" playing out, vs a sudden apocalypse?

661 sats \ 5 replies \ @siggy47 1 Nov 2023

Well, I guess we could use current events as an example. The U.S. treasury announced today that they would be changing the bond auctioning schedule to absorb the maturing bonds while requiring more war funding "for our security." There has been a gradual lessening of demand for these bonds worldwide, causing higher yields. Since the dollar is the world reserve currency, it still benefits from "flight to safety" trades from all the other much worse fiat currencies. This situation can drag on for a while as the dollar is gradually debased by worsening inflation.

756 sats \ 4 replies \ @elvismercury OP 1 Nov 2023

It seems to me that this would actually be better (in the sense of less apocalyptic human tragedy) than a complete collapse, though? You can imagine people in the world slowly coming online to the ways money needs to change, and btc's potential role in that.

(And surely there would be some other changes, too, that are hard to foresee right now; I give zero percent probability to a future where all the powers of the world say: Okay, well that fiat thing has played out, time to shift over to bitcoin!)

Is your opinion that a "rip the band-aid off" situation would be better, ultimately, despite short-term pain? Or maybe I misunderstand you.

661 sats \ 2 replies \ @siggy47 1 Nov 2023

I deleted my prior response. I was trying to multitask-deal with a work crisis while replying. I must learn never to let work get in the way of posting on SN. Anyway, here's what I was trying to say: I'm 100 percent in agreement with you. The human tragedy would be horrific. Also, as you point out, it's very unlikely. There are some people who anticipate a sudden collapse, but I don't. My fear is that in this likely gradual scenario, bitcoin standard first mover nations may suffer violence from the dying fiat states in a futile attempt to keep the system alive. This would probably not be the case with an apocalypse, but overall human suffering would be tragic.

1214 sats \ 1 reply \ @elvismercury OP 1 Nov 2023

Priorities, Siggy. Also, you probably just wanted 152 more sats from me, you scammer.

The scenario you present seems plausible. One thing I'm noodling on, wrt the "dying fiat nation vs fledgling btc nation" is: are there correlates with the factors that would result in a dying fiat nation that might preclude them struggling against the fledgling btc nation? Obviously anything is possible, and it's very easy to tell yourself a feel-good story about how btc's triumph will be sudden and glorious and everything will be amazing thereafter. So I'm trying not to delude myself about things working out.

But in the same way that people / places that are doing well are generally socially progressive (e.g., less racist, less xenophobic, friendlier, higher trust, etc) then is it possible that btc adoption would be a sign of generally-having-your-shit-together in a manner that could short-circuit these kinds of hostilities?

661 sats \ 0 replies \ @siggy47 1 Nov 2023

I tried to make up for my transparent scam. Damn. Your scenario would be great. Some people might see it as an overly touchy feely utopian take, but the incentives align. I'm listening to Erik Cason on WBD. It seems apropos as he discuses Satoshi's ethical unselfishness.

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152 sats \ 0 replies \ @siggy47 1 Nov 2023

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822 sats \ 3 replies \ @elvismercury OP 1 Nov 2023

In the 60s-80s, tensions between the USA and CCCP were high; many thought that nuclear war would be the final result. But the US eventually came out ahead, and Lyn refers to Luke Gromen's assertion that the petrodollar system was a major reason why -- the Soviets were at a terrible disadvantage vs a country that could print the money the world used for oil and trade.

If we accept Gromen's assertion, is this an example of fiat being effectively deployed for virtuous ends? Would you rather live in a world of sound money but where the USA had been unable to exhaust the Soviets?

152 sats \ 2 replies \ @Undisciplined 1 Nov 2023

If we accept Gromen's assertion, is this an example of fiat being effectively deployed for virtuous ends?

I believe in answering hypotheticals without questioning their premises, so, yes that would be a virtuous use of fiat.

With that out of the way, I believe that framing grants way too much credit to American politicians for "winning" the Cold War. There was never an alternative to the Soviet Union collapsing. Central planning doesn't work at scale. As time goes on, more and more errors compound. With no price system to communicate economic knowledge, there's no way to correct those errors without creating even bigger ones. Eventually, the problems become existentially large.

Where I do think credit is warranted (on both sides) is that they didn't end humanity in a nuclear war. Hopefully, today's politicians will follow their example.

420 sats \ 1 reply \ @elvismercury OP 1 Nov 2023

I appreciate you answering the question even though you don't like the premise. I think it's a helpful way to be, when people have good intentions, at least.

I've always wondered at the argument. Before Gromen, you used to hear a similar thing said of Ronald Reagan, that it was his great genius to run the Soviets into the ground with this economic strategy. That always seemed quite convenient, to do the thing you wanted to do anyway and then claim the results for your side at the end, if they happened to be good; and not to mention it, if they weren't.

I think the "compounding errors" is a nice way to frame it. The question, then and now, is: how long can you wait for compounding to solve the problem for you? Not just wrt monetary policy, but in life in general. I have a prompt for later in the day that gets at this idea, hopefully you'll come back for it :)

152 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined 1 Nov 2023

how long can you wait for compounding to solve the problem for you?

I'm not old enough to have been wrong in real time, but I probably would have expected the Soviet Union to fail much faster.

It's reminiscent of "The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent."

381 sats \ 1 reply \ @elvismercury OP 1 Nov 2023

“One of the key things that broadly separates developed countries (which are the minority in terms of population) from developing countries (which are the majority), is that developed countries mostly have their debts denominated in their own currency, while developing countries have a significant portion of their debts, both at the government level and the corporate level, denominated in major foreign currencies like dollars and euros”

If developing countries, and companies operating there, have their debts denominated in currencies that they don't control, would that make them more open to btc? Does understanding this relationship change how you'd deploy funds in service of btc's success?

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @k00b 3 Nov 2023

If it makes them more competitive. Does it? I can't tell. Certainly they don't naively want their debts denominated in bitcoin, but they might want to keep/accept bitcoin, an even harder money, as their reserve asset.

566 sats \ 7 replies \ @elvismercury OP 1 Nov 2023

Executive order 6102 (in 1933) made it illegal to own "meaningful amounts of gold", and the Gold Reserve Act (in 1934) re-priced the exchange rate of gold to a much lower rate than previously. As @mallardshead pointed out the other day these actions didn't occur in a vacuum -- they were embedded in a complicated sociological context.

In the current sociological context, can you imagine the US government going after btc the way it went after gold, once upon a time? How do you think the public would react to such an attempt? What, if anything, has changed in the last hundred years in this regard?

529 sats \ 6 replies \ @k00b 2 Nov 2023

In the current sociological context, can you imagine the US government going after btc the way it went after gold, once upon a time?

I can imagine the US government trying to confiscate bitcoin. But most of us would flee if it were nonvoluntary.

How do you think the public would react to such an attempt?

They'd support it because most of them won't hold bitcoin. Or, the amount of bitcoin they do hold is so little they'd prefer to gamble on the government's promises.

What, if anything, has changed in the last hundred years in this regard?

Much of the world became a better place to live. It became more connected. Most of us wouldn't bat an eye moving to a foreign country today.

381 sats \ 5 replies \ @Undisciplined 2 Nov 2023

I think the public would support btc confiscation, because they would fall for whatever propaganda campaign was used to justify it. I'm sure we can all easily imagine what that would sound like.

575 sats \ 1 reply \ @Signal312 4 Nov 2023

Yes, definitely, propaganda is powerful. See Gold "hoarders" were persecuted in the 1930's, what will happen with bitcoin? Though it's hard to know what people really felt, since all we have easy access to now is old newspapers, etc.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @elvismercury OP 4 Nov 2023

That's a brilliant thread, thanks for refreshing it.

179 sats \ 2 replies \ @elvismercury OP 2 Nov 2023

This is an interesting opportunity, I think -- I suppose the world is just as liable to propaganda as it always has been; but it also seems like people are also deeply suspicious and constantly on the alert for it, so only certain bandwidths of propaganda (the kind aligned with their tribes) can get through.

It seems plausible that btc anti-propaganda (or perhaps more explicitly and less comfortably: propaganda in a direction that I approve of) could defend against the new 6102 in a way that wasn't feasible in 1933.

533 sats \ 1 reply \ @Undisciplined 2 Nov 2023

I suppose the world is just as liable to propaganda as it always has been

This is something I really wonder about. When we look back at WW2 propaganda, for instance, it's easy to laugh at how stupid it is that a Donald Duck was convincing adults to buy war bonds.

Does that mean we're getting more savvy? Maybe, it just means that propaganda is well tailored to its environment.

I do think there are many people who have built up immunity to regime propaganda over the past few years, so the situation might be more hopeful than 1933.

186 sats \ 0 replies \ @elvismercury OP 4 Nov 2023

Does that mean we're getting more savvy? Maybe, it just means that propaganda is well tailored to its environment.

I think both are true -- part of what propaganda is tailoring itself to is our media-savviness. And the way that seems to be manifesting is that the effective propaganda for the age where people don't believe anything is a denial-of-service attack on the truth, because, as we are in the process of discussing, the world is complicated and doesn't lend itself cleanly to simple answers, usually. So then literally every utterance gets attacked, until nobody can say anything, it's all dunks and straw-man takedowns.

I've started to become quite interested in cyclical theories of history, which I find to be incredibly over-extended in a million ways; but which contains core truths that are thought-provoking. The Donald Duck thing strikes me as potentially one such -- the susceptibility to that particular do your part for the war effort vibe could have a generational component that seems idiotic to us bc we're the wrong generation. But we will have our own stupidities. Certainly I do.

420 sats \ 6 replies \ @elvismercury OP 1 Nov 2023

Given the enormous loss of sovereignty for many nations under the petrodollar system, and the vulnerability its exhorbitant privilege introduces into their political economies, are you surprised that the global attitude toward non-state money is what it is? What could account for this seemingly strange behavior?

152 sats \ 2 replies \ @Undisciplined 1 Nov 2023

What could account for this seemingly strange behavior?

The fates of Saddam and Gaddafi come to mind.

861 sats \ 1 reply \ @k00b 2 Nov 2023

Those are just the overt examples. My podcast level geopolitical knowledge suggests there are many covert examples of us "spreading democracy" too. Then there's probably a long tail of petrodollar dissenters that were thwarted before ever getting seated.

I wonder if we'd see more democracies in the world if it were to the petrodollar's advantage.

I suspect the petrodollar is the deep state's girdle.

381 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined 2 Nov 2023

We know for sure that several democracies have been toppled for the petrodollar, so there would probably be more in its absence.

0 sats \ 2 replies \ @k00b 2 Nov 2023

are you surprised that the global attitude toward non-state money is what it is?

Global attitude here means the global attitude of states. Non-state money disfavors the state. As Lyn tells it, the petrodollar/IMF/World Bank stuff favors the state at the expense of the state's people.

All you need to create the surprise is to give low conscientious people state power.

What could account for this seemingly strange behavior?

The West tipping global political scales in its favor. I don't think this happens naturally. It makes no sense. Until this part of the book, I hadn't appreciated (what I guess is called) neocolonialism fully.

381 sats \ 1 reply \ @elvismercury OP 2 Nov 2023

Global attitude here means the global attitude of states. Non-state money disfavors the state. As Lyn tells it, the petrodollar/IMF/World Bank stuff favors the state at the expense of the state's people.

There's clearly a sense in which this is true -- in which there is an entity, called The State, that from one PoV has independent existence, in the same way that there is a thing called A Human Being that has an existence independent of its constituent cells. In this way, states can want X even when their components want Y.

Mises and many Austrians would hate that description, though. I can't count how many times I've read "There's no such thing as X, it is just people making decisions." I think this is mostly wrong, for the reasons above, but it's not completely wrong.

So I guess the point is that, when it comes to this stuff, the desires of states are just stronger? Or, in individual-language: it's the nature of systems where a smallish number of people do well, and they act in accordance with their interests, which are contrary to the larger interest?

Until this part of the book, I hadn't appreciated (what I guess is called) neocolonialism fully.

Same. Although I'm still not comfortable with that label, as the process itself is an expression of forces playing out, whereas the label implies willful action. And the state / individual distinction, given above, blurs that.

I have no doubt that there's some dudes in a room making explicit decisions with full awareness; I also have no doubt that the people I know, buying candy bars and shitty beer with their dollars, are not trying to fuck the people of Bangladesh. And yet some people, engaging in the public dialogue on the topic, would have it so.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @k00b 3 Nov 2023

There's clearly a sense in which this is true -- in which there is an entity, called The State, that from one PoV has independent existence, in the same way that there is a thing called A Human Being that has an existence independent of its constituent cells. In this way, states can want X even when their components want Y.

I was thinking of dictatorships and oligopolies when I wrote that. They are the least interesting states to consider though and they might not be special. So why might a free democracy go along with the petrodollar?

They get to be courtier's to the king which is likely optimal all things considered.

Then the global order is set and everyone else goes along to smooth their suffering.

Although I'm still not comfortable with that label, as the process itself is an expression of forces playing out, whereas the label implies willful action. And the state / individual distinction, given above, blurs that.

I have no doubt that there's some dudes in a room making explicit decisions with full awareness

I'm with you. Reflexively, I see it like dominos. A few dominos decide to tip over and the rest, just being dominos, tip over too.

Those early fucking dominos tho ...

420 sats \ 3 replies \ @elvismercury OP 1 Nov 2023

You can attain grotesque levels of education without ever learning about the petrodollar system, its origins, and the influence it's had on the world. What's your overarching impression after reading about it in chapter 11 of the book?

152 sats \ 1 reply \ @k00b 2 Nov 2023

Establishing and protecting the dollar's dominance makes a lot of sense. It's not easy sense to make, but you can imagine the depressing calculus.

It's scary because after the FOIA request it's still treated like a conspiracy. Grotesquely educated people still aren't aware of it. I'd guess fewer than half of federal officials fully appreciate it if they're aware of it at all. The government was caught naked and we all closed our eyes.

On the other hand, it's reassuring that the money I grew up with was backed by something. It means it isn't mere decree that makes a global reserve currency. Without the petrodollar, the dollar's dominance didn't make sense to me.

I first learned of the petrodollar system from @gladstein¹. When I last visited my Persian family, I got to drop petrodollar knowledge on my uncle who has intuitions around the dollar being backed militarily. It helped back up my bitcoin zeal.

https://bitcoinmagazine.com/culture/the-hidden-costs-of-the-petrodollar ↩

847 sats \ 0 replies \ @elvismercury OP 2 Nov 2023

If I could roll back time, I think starting btc discussions w/ an intro to the petrodollar would be The Way. It's just so clean, and so much snaps into place. I feel a little bad about my past self, who didn't have the pieces to put together.

I think this is mostly what you're saying, but in my own head, when I hear "the dollar isn't backed by anything" I correct it: the dollar is backed by oil. It is grounded in oil, and that is as consequential a grounding, from the PoV of the world, as anything you can think of.

100 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined 1 Nov 2023

Too long, didn't read.

It's no accident that government schools don't teach much about the monetary system. Grifters generally don't like people looking too closely at the grift.

179 sats \ 1 reply \ @elvismercury OP 2 Nov 2023

Lyn compares the US under the petrodollar system to a boxer who doesn't feel pain, but who nonetheless keeps taking damage, to eventual catastrophic result.

However, it's useful to keep in mind that pundits have been predicting the downfall of the dollar, or of fiat, since the moment it first came onto the scene.

Do you have thoughts on the hit that will finally bring the boxer down? And then what happens?

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined 2 Nov 2023

Do you have thoughts on the hit that will finally bring the boxer down?

It won't necessarily be something directly related to US monetary policy. The phrase "gradually, then suddenly" always comes to mind when people bring up this topic.

The dollar's market share has been declining, as has confidence in it. We see major dollar holders taking steps towards being less dependent (codependent?) on it.

At some point it will be less painful to abandon the dollar than it is to hold it and things will spiral rapidly.

179 sats \ 5 replies \ @elvismercury OP 2 Nov 2023

While discussion of the petrodollar system often centers on the ways the US unfairly benefits, Lyn talks about some undesirable effects owning the reserve currency has had. In particular, she describes harsh consequences for its manufacturing capacity and infrastructure.

Aside from manufacturing, what other insidious domestic effects can you think of? What have been the social consequences of the petrodollar system?

352 sats \ 1 reply \ @siggy47 2 Nov 2023

Well, this one is quite specific, and it depends on your acceptance of the government narrative, but there has been substantial evidence of Saudi involvement in the events of 9/11 and other terrorist acts. U.S. citizens lost their lives that day and the economic losses were immense. Due to the petrodollar connection, legal redress was denied and the perpetrators were shielded from civil and criminal liability. The injustice continues to this day.

318 sats \ 0 replies \ @elvismercury OP 2 Nov 2023

Yeah, that was the elephant in my mind when I wrote that. Even then, how things unfolded was suspicious and weird. Now, it makes so much more sense, albeit a tragic and infuriating kind of sense.

152 sats \ 2 replies \ @Undisciplined 2 Nov 2023

There's a ton to be discussed here. In fact, I'm going to appropriate this question for today's econ takeover post.

I'll lay out some more thoughts then, but our cultural attitude of looking to the government to solve every problem has roots in the petrodollar, as does the nearly complete destruction of every private civic association.

179 sats \ 1 reply \ @elvismercury OP 2 Nov 2023

Awesome -- post a link here once you do, please, so I can find it for posterity!

152 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined 2 Nov 2023

Alright, our posts are now mutually linked.

#302320

179 sats \ 1 reply \ @elvismercury OP 1 Nov 2023

What geopolitical consequences can you imagine if Saudi Arabia stopped pricing oil in dollars?

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined 2 Nov 2023

See: Libya, Gaddafi; Iraq, Saddam

162 sats \ 4 replies \ @k00b 1 Nov 2023

I'll be dropping by EoD. I always look forward to these!

I've been trying to recruit @plebpoet and other IRL but no dice.

152 sats \ 3 replies \ @plebpoet 1 Nov 2023

pleb poet reads fiction

152 sats \ 2 replies \ @k00b 2 Nov 2023

pleb poet reads though which makes them a better bitcoin ally than most

130 sats \ 1 reply \ @elvismercury OP 2 Nov 2023

Not only reads, but reads DFW, apparently! We need more of that vibe.

152 sats \ 0 replies \ @plebpoet 2 Nov 2023

I agree with you and I am working on it

252 sats \ 2 replies \ @td 1 Nov 2023

Book club on sn is such a great idea

858 sats \ 1 reply \ @evanbaer 1 Nov 2023

Add the Mandibles to the club queue, I'll be here for it

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @0fje0 1 Nov 2023

Yes, please!

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @Entrep 1 Nov 2023

I bet I have to read the other two parts to fully get the conversation going here

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @elvismercury OP 1 Nov 2023

I don't think so -- it's pretty self-contained, as far as I can determine. If you read part 3 you should be good. (Or, if you've approached these topics with other source material -- you should still be good to go.)

Footnotes